


The Leila Stories - Nair

by Jay Tryfanstone (tryfanstone)



Series: The Leila Stories [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iskryne Series - Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Azzano, Captain America: The First Avenger, Gen, Psychic Wolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 16:49:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9132859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tryfanstone/pseuds/Jay%20Tryfanstone
Summary: It's not just Bucky Steve rescues from the Azzano laboratories.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Please see end notes for sources and series description and rating.

Bucky said, "Steve?" and, "I thought you were smaller," and Steve ripped open the straps holding him to the table, incandescent with rage and relief and triumph. "C'mon, c'mon, Bucky, I gotcha," he said. 

Bucky was already fighting his way upright. "Steve," he said, and in that moment Steve thought - he thought a lot of things, feeling like the hero in one of those pulp comic strips Bucky used to bring home, and although he'd never - well, he didn't expect Bucky to look at him with big blue eyes and fall into his arms like one of the shapely dames in the movies, but under the sharp awareness of every gunshot, of every dangerous moment, of his responsibilities and his lack of experience, there was a small, gleeful triumph that he'd done it, he'd rescued Bucky. He was Bucky's cavalry coming over the horizon in the nick of time. 

Outside, a tank started up, the thudding, hard rumble of its engine rattling the window frame, and the sickening blue lightning of the Hydra weapons speared the night sky. Bucky's face was all hollows, the curve of his cheekbones and the thrust of his chin and his eyes, all dark, and the dank air smelled of sickness and chemicals and ash.

Steve could fuss over Bucky later. They had to go. There were men dying in the courtyard, covering Bucky's escape.

Then Bucky said, his voice cracking and his grip on Steve's hand vice-tight, "Where's Nair? Steve, where's Nair?"

He sounded desperate. His eyes slid away from Steve's, to the door, the window, the corner, where a two-foot length of chain hung from a ringbolt. The floorboards were stained.

"I need - I can't leave without-" Bucky cried out. He was frantic, struggling to his feet, staring around the laboratory. "He was here, I know he was, they had him too. Nair!"

"Who the hell is Nair?" Steve said. He could hear the sharp rattle of small-arms fire and then the thundering roar of another tank, and smoke was beginning to curl under the door. They had to get out of here. "They're all out, everyone's out, I swear, we gotta scram!" 

"Not without Nair!" Bucky said, with the same stubborn insistence Steve was used to hearing directed at himself. "Nair! Buddy, where are you?"

Steve had his arm across Bucky's back, half supporting, half urging Bucky towards the door. He could feel the rise of Bucky's ribs - he was thinner and more muscled all at once - as Bucky drew in a breath. "Nair!" Bucky screamed.

Above the sound of the guns and the tank, something howled. Something _howled_ , a wild animal, high and sharp and panicked. Bucky wrenched himself free. "There you are," he said, stumbling through the doorway, although his stride was getting easier with every step. The corridor blurred with smoke, acrid and chemical. "Nair!" 

He was running, pushing off the wall, unsteady on his feet, driving himself towards the fire. "Bucky!" Steve screamed at him. "We can't wait, we gotta go, don't-"

Bucky was slamming his shoulder into a bolted door, desperate. "Steve," he shouted. "Steve, I gotta get in there-"

Steve smashed his shield down on the lock. The door crashed open and Bucky was through, racing towards a cage in the corner, and in the cage, growling, was a dog. A big dog, half-starved, with mangy fur and a whip of a tail and massive teeth, flinging itself at the bars. It was so powerful the cage shook with every impact, but the bars were steel, welded to the floor. Steve had never seen a more vicious animal, but Bucky was punching at the reinforced hatch on the cage, heaving and tugging as the dog bit at the bars, as if he and the dog were working together, and it was clear Bucky and Steve were not leaving alone. Steve readied his shield, calculating angles, just as Bucky gritted his teeth and heaved and howled himself, and the hatch sprung open. Instantly, the dog flew at Steve, jaws wide. Steve flung his shield up, felt hot, sour breath, the smell of filthy animal, the weight on his shield arm - he staggered backwards, trying to defend himself without hurting the animal. "Bucky!" he shouted.

"Nair, stop!" Bucky was already yelling. "Nair, it's okay, Steve's here, we're safe!"

Impossibly, the dog twisted in mid-air. It was so close Steve could hear the scratch of its claws on his shield as it spun and went for Bucky. 

Bucky had thumped down to both knees, his arms held wide, defenseless. And the dog - the dog skidded straight for him, yelping, and nearly bowled him over. It was licking Bucky's chin. Its head was as high as his, its jaws so big they could rip Bucky's face off, but Bucky was clutching onto it like Becca held her rag doll and his eyes were closed. He was grinning, the tight, crazed grin Steve had seen on men coming back from the front.

Whatever was between Bucky and this dog, it felt private. A closed circle, with Steve on the outside.

Then the wind coming through the door was no longer warm, but hot, bringing sparks and cinders. "Let's _go_ , soldier," Steve snapped. He'd never spoken to Bucky that way before.

The dog dropped to a crouch and Bucky spun with it, the pair of them evenly matched, eerily similar. "Too right," Bucky said. "Let's get the hell out of here, Rogers." He was seeing Steve, this time, eyes focused, shoulders braced, the Bucky Steve recognized from a hundred fights in barrooms and alleyways. Beside him, the dog was equally tense, and it had the same bright-eyed stare. 

He should, Steve felt, have been talking to both of them. A platoon of two. Instead he tightened his grip on the shield. As he turned to the doorway, he could see Bucky and the dog fall in behind him, one on either side. The synchronicity made the hairs on the back of his neck bristle. He wanted to - there was no time for explanations. They ran, twisting and turning through the burning corridors, slamming through doorways and falling beams. Whatever Hydra had done to Bucky, he was keeping pace, as powerful as Steve. It was the adrenaline rush, Steve thought, as Bucky kicked through a blocked doorway, but it was more than that. He was too fast, too powerful. And beside him, the dog - silent now - the dog moved as if it was, somehow, aware of their danger. It was the dog that took point, head lowered, nose sniffing out doors and rubble and stairwells, and Bucky followed it, blindly trusting. It wasn't Steve Bucky looked for, now. It was the dog.

It's an animal, Steve thought, kicking through a metal door onto a walkway that promised to lead them outside. It's just a dog. It was a damn useful dog, he was man enough to admit that, scenting out Hydra soldiers and clear passageways, and preternaturally good at understanding where they were headed, but it was just a dog.

Then it stopped, the fur over its massive shoulders bristling, teeth bared. There was a figure - posed, Steve thought, everything he saw that night technicolor clear, unspooling as if he was running through a film set. A man, threatening, with something wrong about the way he stood, his head, his eyes. The dog braced, snarling, all coiled muscles.

"Schmidt," growled Bucky. His stride lengthened.

Smoke billowed across the girders, thickening in clouds. Nair leapt, bounding, outpacing both of them. Steve followed, shield already hefted in his hands. He threw, running, watching the shield spin out ahead of them, thinking he'd do better with something with more weight to it, a sharper edge - and then Schmidt ducked, smooth and practiced, the shield rebounded, and Nair was leaping for the man's throat.

Schmidt was already swinging. His fist hit the dog's ribs with a vicious crack Steve could hear above the sound of the flames. The dog was knocked sideways, spinning as it fell, and then it crumpled against the steel wall. Bucky screamed as it collapsed, a hideous, broken howl. Schmidt had his pistol out, shooting, bullets ricocheting from metal, the dog was a tangled, unmoving huddle, and the walkway between them was in flames, crumbling, falling. Bucky was barreling right into the smoke. Steve had to leap for his rebounding shield, jerking his own pistol out -everything felt slowed down, a montage of stills, Bucky running, the bullets, Schmidt's face. The bridge was - he could almost see the bolts fail, the pattern of molecules shift in the stressed steel, predict the way it would fall, the moment when Bucky would have to stop -

"No!" Steve shouted.

Ahead of him, Bucky didn't even hesitate. He was leaping the gap, an impossible stretch. The flames leapt up, kissing the soles of his boots, and it was too far, no living man could make that distance. 

"Bucky!" Steve screamed, and went for it, racing out into midair. He could feel his feet wind-milling, lunged for Bucky, had all the time in the world to watch Bucky's grasping hands reach for the hanging rail - and catch it. Bucky was swinging himself upright, there was a pistol already in his hand, and Steve too was crashing into the walkway. He flung himself upright, reaching for the shield, racing on. Bucky was shooting, one handed, bullets slamming into the passageway where Schmidt had vanished.

When Bucky turned round his teeth were bared. "Get him!" he shouted. He was throwing Steve his gun. 

"What?" Steve yelled. "Buck, what?"

Bucky had bent to pick up the dog.

Steve ran, chasing Schmidt.

He was too late. He had to stop to shoot, his palms sweating and his own gun heavy in his hands after the balsawood props. His aim was off, thrown out by smoke and Schmidt's incredible speed, for all the power and strength of his new body, he was too slow on the runway, too inexperienced, too - the smoke was - he was not, Steve thought, a quitter. He pushed himself harder. The hanger unfurled around him, vast and empty, his lungs were beginning to burn, and as fast as he could run, Schmidt's Hydra plane was faster. 

"He get away?" Bucky said, at his shoulder.

"Yup," Steve said, grim.

"Next time," Bucky said.

Steve turned. Bucky had his arms full of limp dog, one hand clenched in the ruff of its neck. Its head was resting on Bucky's shoulder, and the curve of its skull was bigger than Bucky's own. Nair's jaws were immense, jowled and sagging, so that every one of the massive teeth were cruelly visible. The dog must weigh over a hundred pounds. 

Bucky was carrying it like it weighed nothing. As if the dog was family. Steve had seen Bucky carry his sisters with that same careful, secure grip. 

Steve took a deep breath. "They feed you up in the army?" he said.

"Yeah, I thought you were smaller, too," Bucky said. "We gonna get the hell out of here or what, Rogers?"

The gate was down. Dark figures crowded the courtyard. A tank, careering, hit one of the gateposts and brought down twenty yards of stonework and barbed wire. Over by the barracks, someone was shooting, measured, single shots a couple of heartbeats apart. One of the buildings had blown up: sparks littered the wind. 

"Yeah," Steve said. He kept the gun drawn, Bucky's gun. His own was out of ammunition, and Bucky's hands were full.

He would have liked, he thought, to clap Bucky on the shoulder, grip his arm. Make Bucky real, warm and strong under Steve's touch. But Bucky was holding the dog, and Steve had the pistol - he smiled, and led them into the courtyard.

**Author's Note:**

> So. The Leila Stories - there are four, posting over the next six days - started off as an MCU riff on Dira Sudis' absolutely superb _Generation Kill_ series, [Every Marine a Wolfbrother](http://archiveofourown.org/series/10153), which is itself a fusion with Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette's Iskryne Series. They were going to be long and politically involved. Like so many brilliant ideas, this never happened, so instead the Leila Stories are the scavenged remnants of that far longer and better story. 
> 
> The Iskyrne series (initially) describes a band of Vikingesque warriors, each with a psychic bond to a wolf, both warriors and wolves bound by the social structures of a wolfpack. Dira Sudis translates this pack structure into modern military terms, with all the advantages and disadvantages of military discipline working with and against pack discipline.
> 
> This particular story in the Leila series is gen, but please be aware ratings rise up to explicit in the fourth and final story.


End file.
